


in the unlikeliest of places, we all find a little grace

by WitchyBee



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Blood, Canon-Typical Violence, Cigarettes, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fix-It of Sorts, Flashbacks, Found Family, Friendship, Gen, Hospitals, Injury, Mary Keay's Bad Parenting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-14
Updated: 2020-03-22
Packaged: 2020-12-16 08:09:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21033020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WitchyBee/pseuds/WitchyBee
Summary: Gertrude Robinson promised the ghost of Eric Delano that she would ensure his son is okay. He isn't. She sends Adelard Dekker to rectify this.(Or, Gerry works with Adelard instead, and two lonely monster hunters save one another.)





	1. Chapter 1

At a glance, the goth kid looks like any number of hapless individuals Adelard has encountered over the years who, seeking a thrill, stumbled too close to an aspect of the Entities and got hurt. He isn’t, though. It would seem Gerard Keay has known nothing else but fear, thanks to his dearly departed mother.

The infamous Mary Keay is the reason Adelard is currently standing outside a derelict bookshop at half past eleven in the evening. He doesn’t particularly want to be here, but nor does he wish to continue owing Gertrude a favor. That is a dangerous position to be in, even for a friend.

Gerard hasn’t said a word since Adelard gave him the charred and mangled book. He is making a valiant effort to contain his emotions, but he’s shaking quite badly despite his leather trenchcoat, and the twin trails of black eyeliner running down his cheeks are something of a giveaway. Considering Mary’s reputation, he sincerely doubts they are tears of mourning.

“She’s really gone?” Gerard asks, voice brittle and raspy as if he’s just woken up from a nightmare. Perhaps he has, in a way.

“I am reasonably confident of it.”

“W-wh— Fuck.” He takes a deep breath, swiping at his eyes. “What do I do now?”

“Move on,” Adelard replies, like the hypocrite he is. “Try to live a normal life as best you can.”

“It’s too late for that,” he says, with a bitter laugh. “I’ve known about the Powers that be all my life. I hunted down Leitner’s bloody books since I was a teenager. I’ve seen monsters, even killed some of them. I can’t ignore what’s out there, just pretend none of it exists and...I dunno, go to art school or whatever.”

He knows the feeling, and briefly indulges a deep pang of sadness at the realization that someone as young as Gerard knows it so keenly, too.

Adelard carefully considers his options. He could walk away right now. Probably should. His obligation is done, technically. Whatever promises Gertrude might have made beyond this point are hers alone to keep.

The boy would be useful, of course; it seems Gerard hasn’t taken after his mother, as Gertrude feared, but he has learned her lessons well enough. Adelard could bring him to the Magnus Institute, he supposes, and let him become another lost soul molded like clay in the Archivist’s hands until he is eventually sacrificed for the greater good. Her methods, ruthless as they can be, are undeniably effective. You can’t save everyone, Adelard knows that all too well, which does not mean it isn’t worth trying to save someone, from time to time.

“You could come with me,” Adelard suggests. “I tend to work alone but I wouldn’t object to the company, at least for a while.”

“We hardly know each other. You’re serious?”

“Very much so.”

“Well, I guess I don’t have anywhere else to go, do I,” Gerard says distantly. “So...yeah. Okay.”

Adelard nods. “Good. I will come back tomorrow. I’m sure you need a little time to gather your things and...tie up any loose ends here, as it were.” He indicates the burnt book. “Goodnight, Gerard.”

He turns to leave—

“Gerry,” a voice behind him says, quiet and soft.

“Pardon?”

“My mum called me Gerard. If we’re really going to be—if we're working together, I’d like you to call me Gerry.”

“All right, Gerry. Get some rest.”

* * *

When Adelard returns to Pinhole Books early the next morning, Gerry is already waiting for him outside with a duffel bag. It looks as though he hasn’t slept at all. He gets in the car, and doesn’t look back as Adelard drives away.

“So,” Gerry starts, breaking the silence, “What is it you do, exactly? Don’t look much like a hunter.”

“No, I’m not affiliated. You could say I'm an exorcist, of sorts. I gather information, interfere,” Adelard tells him. He pauses briefly, unsure how much to reveal. “And I pursue evidence for a theory of mine.”

“What sort of theory?”

He hears the unmistakable click of a lighter, and gives Gerry a sharp look. The lighter has an intricate eye design on it, a fact which he very deliberately files away for later consideration along with the small eyes tattooed on Gerry's hands.

“No smoking in my car.”

“Oh come on, I’ll open the window.”

Adelard sighs, regretting his life choices. “Fine. Just this once.”

A few moments pass in silence.

“When did you quit smoking?”

“Excuse me?”

Gerry shrugs. “Nobody hates cigarettes that much otherwise.”

"Is that so?"

"Yep," Gerry says confidently, exhaling smoke.

“...Seventeen years ago,” Adelard admits.

“Hm. Worth it?” he wonders.

“Yes. Most days.”

They drive on. Gerry doesn’t inquire about their destination even once, apparently just relieved to be leaving Morden. He can sympathize. Adelard’s mind wanders a bit, imagining how the hell he’s going to explain this to Gertrude in his next letter. No doubt she will think he’s gone soft in his old age.

Maybe he has.


	2. Chapter 2

There’s so much blood.

Some of it came from the damn book itself. Most of it didn’t.

Gerry has never seen this much blood before.

No, no, that’s not right; he just hasn’t seen this much blood since—

“Finish it,” Mary commands. Begs. She is holding out a pen and a razor blade. Everything is crimson, the air so thick with the coppery smell of blood that he can’t breathe he can’t think—

“Help me, Gerard!” his mother shrieks. He wants to run but he can’t—

He can’t move. No, no, that’s not right; he can. He did. He remembers running, falling, the blood sticky on his hands. And Gerry realizes he can move now, too, in the distant part of his mind not clouded by dizziness and panic and the overwhelming feeling that he’s somewhere else. The same lucid part of himself that knows it will be a while before someone notices the fire and calls 999, and if he doesn’t staunch the bleeding immediately then—

“Help me, Gerry,” says Adelard, firm but calm. Irritatingly calm, really, given the circumstances. The bloodstain is a stark red against his pristine white shirt. “Don’t...let me f-fall asleep.”

This is enough to bring Gerry back to the present, for the most part. Could he use Adelard's tie to fashion a makeshift tourniquet? He starts applying pressure to the wound, and tries very hard not to think about his hands slick with blood—

Adelard’s eyes are slowly drifting shut.

“No no no don’t you dare! Stay awake, old man,” Gerry commands. Begs. “Fuck, uh—tell me more about that theory of yours. A fifteenth Power, you said?”

“Extinction," he wheezes. "The future... without us.”

"Yeah. Tell me about it."

Adelard tells him. It's difficult to follow, because his voice keeps faltering as he fights to stay conscious. Something about doors and corpses and plastic. Gerry isn't in the best state to pay close attention either. It does the trick, though, and that's what matters.

“Shit,” Gerry curses when Adelard stops speaking, which is about as much concern as he can spare for the impending apocalypse right now. “Hey, I think I hear sirens,” he adds, only half certain; his ears are still ringing.

Help arrives within minutes, but it feels like they’re waiting for hours. Everything’s a bit of a blur after that. Adelard is stabilized and quickly taken away in an ambulance. Later, Gerry vaguely recalls being asked a lot of questions. Trying to explain what happened—that he’s fine, that the blood isn’t his—without really explaining at all. He must say something wrong, though, because next thing he knows the paramedics are insisting Gerry has a mild concussion and he is on his way to the hospital, too.

* * *

Adelard wakes up, which is a promising development. He is greeted with the bleary haze of painkillers and the sour scent of antiseptic. Hospital, then. That makes sense. But there’s something else... cigarette smoke? Adelard opens his eyes and, sure enough, there’s Gerry, looking rather the worse for wear but quite relieved as well.

“You’re awake.”

"Yes... I don't think you're allowed to smoke in here."

Gerry shrugs. "It's been a stressful day."

“Are you all right?” Adelard asks him.

“Me? Yeah, of course,” he answers, entirely too quickly. “Just a bit of smoke inhalation and a knock to the head. I’ve had worse. I’m not the one who needed a blood transfusion.”

No point mentioning this particular incident to Gertrude, he decides. Close calls happen in their line of work, it's unavoidable, but it is a little embarrassing. Not relevant to the Extinction, in any case. Just an old book oozing violence and pain. Nothing special.

“It's something of an occupational hazard.”

“I suppose,” Gerry sighs. “Fucking Leitners, y'know? There was... a lot of blood. I thought you were going to die,” he says quietly. He keeps looking at his hands.

“So did I,” he admits. “But I’m not dead. And I believe I have you to thank for that.”

“Don’t.”

“Why?”

“Because I _froze_. I shouldn’t have—I mean, it was five years ago. She’s gone, actually gone, and I’ve seen s lot worse than... blood. It was just too much. I'm sorry.”

Adelard has heard the same rumors as anyone else who runs in certain circles about the dark things Gerry’s mother did in her lifelong quest for power, her botched immortality. Gertrude filled him in on some of the finer details, of course. However, he actually never had the misfortune of meeting Mary Keay in her “human” or spectral form. The way Gerry is looking at him now, like he expects to be berated for his perceived failure, makes Adelard quite grateful of that fact.

“For what it’s worth, I’m glad you were there. You saved my life.”

“But I almost didn’t.”

“Well, I almost wasn’t maimed by a book. Almost doesn’t matter. You’re a good friend, Gerry. End of discussion,” Adelard says, as authoritatively as he can manage considering his eyelids are getting very heavy again.

“You’re high,” Gerry says, but he’s smiling slightly. “Go back to sleep.”

Adelard can’t really argue with that, so he does as he's told.


	3. Chapter 3

Gerry picks halfheartedly at his scrambled eggs, idly moving them around the plate with his fork. Adelard, despite ordering no food himself, had insisted that Gerry eat something, but he isn’t feeling particularly hungry. In fact, he’s still a bit nauseous. They’d had a nasty run in with the Flesh last night. Nothing Extinction worthy, though. Then he managed about three hours of fitful sleep before he was rudely awoken just after sunrise, and dragged to Wimpy for breakfast.

Adelard is quietly reading a copy of _the Guardian_ between sips of black coffee. If he is as miserable as Gerry, he doesn’t show it. He also keeps checking his watch every few minutes. Honestly, who still wears a watch these days?

Gerry drums his fingers against the tabletop, impatient.

“Are we expecting someone?” he asks. “Or something? Because I can’t be much help if I don’t actually know what's happening.”

“The Extinction threatens everyone. We have little hope of stopping it on our own,” Adelard explains, setting the newspaper aside. “However, I recently established contact with a potential ally.”

“Okay. Who is it?”

That’s when Gerry notices the restaurant has gone dead silent. He looks around and realizes that, apart from theirs, all the other tables are now abandoned. There's no sign of a customer or employee anywhere. They are completely alone.

“You’re not bloody serious,” Gerry hisses. He shivers, pulling his coat tighter around himself. It definitely hadn’t been so cold in here a moment ago.

“Beggars can’t be choosers, as they say,” Adelard tells him, like that justifies anything.

“Am I interrupting?” a new voice inquires, clearly interrupting. Gerry almost jumps out of his skin despite knowing, rationally, that other people do still exist somewhere in the world.

“Oh great,” says Gerry. “Should I just leave you and Captain McCallister to it, then?”

The newcomer stares at him blankly. “It’s Captain Lukas. But please, call me Peter,” he says, eerily cheerful. Gerry certainly will not. There is something very off about the man’s voice, like he tried for human and missed the mark. It makes his teeth ache.

Adelard politely clears his throat. “Thank you for meeting with me.”

There’s a third chair at the table, but Peter makes no move to sit down.

“To be honest, I’m surprised you came to me with this,” he remarks. “Rather than your...friend...at the Magnus Institute.”

Adelard does not respond. But it seems that Peter, damn him, might be slightly sharper than he looks.

“Oh I see. She doesn’t believe you.”

“Gertrude is quite busy trying to prevent you and your ilk from destroying the world before the new emergence can even fully manifest. What’s more, she is a pragmatic woman. I won’t ask her to take anything on faith.”

“It’s somewhat heartening to know that the Archivist is as ruthless towards her own associates as her enemies.”

“If she truly considered you an enemy, Peter, we would not be having this conversation.”

“Such loyalty,” Peter scoffs. “Do you think she values your friendship even half that much?”

“You misunderstand. If Gertrude deemed you to be a threat, you’d be dead.”

Gerry can’t take it anymore.

“God, this is ridiculous,” he cuts in. “You two are supposed to be working together, right? No more people means no one to fear isolation. And obviously that isn’t the kind of apocalypse you want, Popeye, because here you are talking to us.”

The sea captain’s polite smile wavers momentarily, but he nods in agreement.

“You’re right,” Adelard admits. “We are on the same side, Peter. If nothing else, we both have a vested interest in the continued existence of humanity.”

Common ground reached at last.

Gerry stands up. “Great. I need some air. I’ll go wait outside, assuming I don’t disappear forever, I guess.”

Which is a risk he’s willing to take at this point, Gerry thinks, as he leaves the restaurant. It’s raining, just a light drizzle, but he doesn’t mind. There are people on the street. The London air is cool and damp, and free of any ominous supernatural fog. He feels like he can breathe again.

* * *

The rest of their meeting is blessedly short in the wake of Gerry’s abrupt departure. Adelard presents his theory and the supporting evidence, such as it is, as concisely as possible. Still, he suspects Peter Lukas might be willing to say just about anything to end the conversation by the time they part ways. After Peter vanishes into the Lonely, the restaurant is once more a flurry of life and activity, as if it had never been empty at all.

Adelard finishes his coffee. It’s gone cold, but he isn’t one to waste things needlessly.

He finds Gerry outside talking to a woman Adelard has never seen before. The stranger walks away before he can overhear anything they’ve said.

“Who was that?” he asks.

“Oh, so we’re done keeping secrets now?” Gerry snaps at him, which feels well earned, all things considered.

“I owe you an apology,” Adelard says gravely.

“...What?”

“You deserved to know about Lukas. I’ve been doing this work more or less alone for a long time, but you and I are a team now. I lost sight of that, and I’m sorry. I will do better.”

“Good. Thank you,” he replies, quiet and sincere. “Anyway, I get it; he has connections and resources we don’t. I just—” Gerry sighs. “Can’t stand his lot.”

He nods. “The Lonely can be... deceptively insidious. Not so straightforward as some of the others.”

“It’s not that. I mean, the Fears can’t help being what they are. But the Lukases’ entitlement, their obsession with carrying on some horrible family tradition because it makes them feel special? That’s just people. They have a choice.”

_We all do_, Adelard thinks. He hopes he made the correct one by trusting a servant of the Lonely with his life’s work. He doesn't doubt his decision to trust Gerry.

* * *

They’re stuck in traffic. He will be grateful the next time one of his contacts comes through with something worth investigating that takes them far away from London. Not happy, of course—Adelard wouldn’t wish the Powers’ devastation upon anyone—but just the slightest bit relieved.

“So. I’m assuming you have questions,” Gerry says. He’s watching the city through the rain-streaked car window. “Seems only fair, if we’re going for honesty and trust and all.”

“Very well. Who was that woman you were talking to earlier?”

“No idea. Didn’t catch her name.”

“Enlightening. Thank you.”

“Sorry. Look, I’m exhausted and I’ve got a headache. I can explain it, but just the short version for now, all right?”

“Of course.”

Gerry shifts uncomfortably. “Sometimes I just...I know when a person’s been marked by an Entity. Like a sort of spidey sense, I guess. Only it sucks.”

“That doesn’t sound like the Web,” Adelard observes, quite puzzled.

“No, It— Really? Ugh, forget that bit. It’s Beholding, obviously. Isn’t even that useful. It comes and goes. And when I do sense something, then what? Go up to a complete stranger and tell them to avoid meat or the dark, like a deranged fortune cookie.”

“But...you did say something to her.”

“Yeah, well. I have to at least try, don’t I?” He looks down at his hands, at the eyes tattooed along his knuckles, and grins. “Not exactly what my mum had in mind. Reckon she would’ve hated it.”

He doesn't think he wants to know what Mary's intentions were. Still, there are worse motivators for kindness than spite. They both know what a cruel and thankless job it is to make the world a little bit safer. It takes everything you are willing to give and often many things you are not. Adelard can't deny a slight twinge of envy; he has found himself wishing for abilities like Gertrude's before, despite knowing their high cost. He remembers Eric Delano, a man who paid dearly to protect what mattered most to him. It isn't his place to say, of course, but Adelard believes Eric would be very proud of the man his son became.


	4. Chapter 4

The first thing they see upon entering the Magnus Institute is a large portrait of the esteemed Jonah Magnus himself, his eyes ever watchful from the frame.

“Mum hated this place,” Gerry comments. “Everything it stands for.”

“Was there anything she didn’t hate?” Adelard wonders.

He thinks about it for a long moment, and shrugs. “Her books, I guess.”

As they descend into the gloomy basement, that watched feeling steadily grows stronger. The Beholding’s presence isn’t unpleasant, not really. He thinks it probably ought to be. It scares him a bit that he’s not scared at all.

Then they reach the archives. Rows upon rows of shelves piled high with file boxes. It feels like far too much for just one employee to manage all on their own, even her.

“So, you’re the Archivist then,” Gerry says.

“Gertrude Robinson, yes.”

“Huh. Adelard talks about you all the time. Thought you’d be, I dunno...taller.”

“Terribly sorry to disappoint,” she says, faintly amused. “Although I could say the same; you’ve featured prominently in a few of our statements.”

Which doesn't really sound like a good thing. There’s something in her eyes, too. Not even the Eye, he doesn’t think. Just something cold and calculating about the way she looks at Gerry. It reminds him of his mum.

Thankfully, Adelard cuts their conversation short when he asks to speak with the Archivist alone for a moment. Gerry agrees and waits patiently, but it seems they have a lot of catching up to do. He knows better than to read the statements scattered around, so he ends up just sort of staring at the walls, wondering if any of these tapes have his dad’s voice on them, if this place can provide the answers Gerry has wanted for as long as he can remember. Maybe he’ll ask Gertrude about it later.

* * *

Gertrude pours two cups of tea—Earl Grey, good quality albeit always slightly oversteeped.

“I admit, this isn’t what I anticipated when I asked you to check in on Mary’s boy,” she says.

“Eric’s too, you know,” Adelard points out. “I imagine Gerry takes after him, although I never knew his father well.”

“Stubborn, is he?” she asks, smiling into her teacup.

“All my dearest friends are.”

“Hm. I’m not so certain Eric would approve of his son’s...vocation.”

“Frankly, it’s a small miracle that he survived Mary’s parenting with a shred of moral character intact. He has saved lives, including mine.”

“I take it you have told him about your theory.” A question that is deliberately not a question. Adelard has been trying for the better part of seven years now to convince Gertrude of this threat to the balance of things.

“Yes. Well, we’re getting old, Gertrude.” He sighs wearily. “Someday you and I will be gone. It’ll fall to others to take up our duty.”

That doesn’t frighten him nearly as much as it once did. Adelard used to lay awake at night, consumed with thoughts of dying in his sleep. The inevitability. The unknown. Admittedly, his faith is as fragile now as it ever has been, and he’s still scared, though less of death itself. He isn’t in a hurry to find out what awaits him after this life, but the prospect of an eternal rest is no longer entirely without its appeal. He just doesn’t want to be alone when the End finally claims him.

“It’s more than that, isn’t it? You’ve grown fond of Gerard,” she observes, her expression unreadable.

“I suppose I have,” he says.

* * *

Eventually Gerry decides to leave Gertrude and Adelard to their scheming and sneak off for a cigarette. Gerry may not be an expert on archiving by any means, but he suspects that lighting up next to boxes of old papers is a very bad idea. Wouldn’t hold a candle to what he’s been through with the Lightless Flame, of course, but still.

So, he goes outside. The Eye’s scrutiny dulls to a sort of mildly invasive background hum.

“Got a light?” asks a man standing nearby, cigarette in hand. He flashes a thin smile. The guy’s handsome; he would probably be even more attractive if he looked less worried and exhausted. As it is, he certainly does seem to need that cigarette.

“Sure.”

Gerry holds out his lighter.

“Thanks. Forgot mine in my flat this morning. And my phone. I, uh, haven’t been sleeping too well lately.”

He’s already running through the most likely suspects as he lights his own cigarette. Stranger? Distortion?

“Did you come here to give a statement?” he asks carefully.

“Tried to,” he says, with a bitter laugh. “But my experiences are apparently too far-fetched even for the Magnus Institute. Turns out they have rather rigid criteria. No dreams, period. No exceptions. I get it, objectively I do, but...”

The guy trails off. They smoke in silence for a while until he looks over and notices that the would-be statement giver is just...staring at him, tired eyes completely focused on Gerry. He wants very much to dismiss it as the ordinary weirdness one encounters in the city, but his gut tells him this is more than someone being judgmental about his hair or tattoos. He's been marked.

“Are you all right?”

“Sorry,” the man says quickly, dropping his cigarette. “Shit. I should—Okay, look, I know this sounds mad, but please just listen: You’re gonna die. Soon, I mean. Not like in the general sense that we all die one day. I’m sorry.”

Oh, Gerry thinks distantly, so this is how it feels then. He’s given his fair share of ominous warnings to strangers before but it’s the first time he’s been on the other end of that particular conversation. This poor man isn’t even aware of what he’s becoming, by the looks of things.

“How do you know I’m going to die?”

“I see things. Usually in my dreams, but now sometimes when I’m awake, too,” he explains. He grinds out the cigarette beneath his shoe, clearly avoiding Gerry’s eyes. “It depends on the cause of death. In your case, there’s a, uh—it’s wrapped around your head, a bit like, y’know, one of those little paper crowns you get from a Christmas cracker. Except it’s made of like...tendrils of darkness. That's all. I don't know any specifics.”

“Well,” Gerry says, breathing out smoke. “That sucks.”

Honestly, of the big fourteen, the End always slips his mind. There are far worse things than death. He knows that. Gerry never really expected to live as long as he has, anyway. Which is not to say he doesn’t want to, or that It feels any less fucking unfair. Just when he’s got a friend and Is finally free, scraping together a life that truly belongs to him—

“So, uh, you believe me? Just like that?”

“Yeah.”

“But _why_? Even I thought I was losing my mind.”

“The Magnus Institute draws people in. People who’ve seen things, like you have. I believe you.”

“Right... I’m sorry it probably won’t make a difference. I really am.”

It sounds like he actually means that, is the thing. It's genuine. Maybe part of him is just doing this instinctively to feed off the fear, and yet, a fledgling avatar whose name Gerry doesn’t even know still cares more about his life than his own mother ever did.

“Think I’ll have another cigarette,” Gerry says, offering his lighter. “Want one?”

“I... All right.”


	5. Chapter 5

Gerry does not trust Gertrude Robinson, but he’s pretty sure he trusts Adelard Dekker, and Adelard trusts her implicitly. He also despises Jurgen Leitner more than anyone else still living. So, when the Archivist tells him privately that she has a solid lead on the reviled librarian’s current whereabouts, Gerry listens.

He doesn’t tell Adelard about it. Just like he hasn’t yet mentioned that a man on the street prophesized his imminent death. Gerry simply makes some excuse to get a couple hours alone. Adelard knows by now that he can take care of himself.

For someone who has spent the past twenty years of his life in hiding, Leitner isn’t very hard to find. It seems the man himself is much easier to track down than the books bearing his name. Typical hubris. You’d have to be an idiot to believe anywhere is truly safe.

Gerry will try to tell himself later that it is the old man’s desperate pleading, the fear in his eyes, which finally pulls him back to his senses. That he knows, immediately, this cannot be Jurgen Leitner, and if it is, he’s not worth it. But all of that rationalization comes after the fact. In truth, it’s the blood speckled on the pathetic man’s split lip and streaming from his broken nose.

He looks at his hands. Red eyes stare back at him.

* * *

Gerry manages to stumble home somehow. It's a bit of a blur.

Adelard's small flat is unremarkable, sparsely decorated. What old books and knickknacks he does have look incredibly cursed. Still, he's been kind enough to let Gerry crash on his couch for now, which is preferable to a motel or, gods forbid, the damn bookshop. He never wants to return to Pinhole Books again.

“What happened?” Adelard asks. Demands to know, really.

“You should see the other guy,” he replies, a bit dazed.

“What were you thinking? With your record—”

“I didn’t kill him! I just— Gertrude told me she knew where to find Jurgen Leitner. I wanted...” He stops. He hasn’t given it much thought, in all honesty. He’d wanted Leitner to pay. To suffer. If he is going to die soon, maybe Gerry could be all right with that should he manage to take the arrogant bastard whose name scarred his childhood down with him. But he had fucked that up, too. “He was so scared,” Gerry continues, quieter. “Maybe it wasn’t him. I dunno.”

Adelard sighs. It’s a long-suffering kind of sigh, even though they haven’t known each other for very long at all.

“Sit down, Gerard.”

Oh shit. He’s ruined everything.

He all but collapses into the nearest chair. Adelard leaves the room without another word, phone in hand. Gerry puts his throbbing head down on the table. His knuckles hurt. Everything hurts. He’s so tired. Gerry half listens to what sounds like a polite argument, catching only snippets of the one-sided conversation. It’s enough to know he must be talking to Gertrude.

Almost as soon as he comes back, the power cuts out.

The Dark, Gerry thinks immediately. Adelard must have the same thought because he quickly begins gathering up torches like it's a matter of life and death. It very well could be.

"Got any candles?" Gerry asks, all fear and exhaustion forgotten.

"Check in the hall closet."

His search does yield a few tall white candles, and something else.

"Uh, hey," he starts, pulling an actual goddamn sword from its sheath. "Why do you even have—"

"Later," Adelard says, with a look of finality that would've shut Mary up.

Later happens to be in approximately twenty minutes, when Gerry and Adelard determine there's nothing remotely paranormal about this darkness. Or, if there is, then they have both encountered far worse. Somehow the conversation turns to those experiences. It becomes a bit of a game. A competition.

"Ran away from home when I was twelve and found a Leitner. Dumb luck more than anything," Gerry says. "Turned out it was the Dark. I read about a sentence—stupid, I know—and went blind for three days. Ugh. Mum was not impressed. Reckon she was more concerned about me ruining the book, though."

“Mary really had her priorities in order, didn’t she,” Adelard says. “Still, you survived.” They both know the odds of that aren’t great, even with a relatively benign Leitner.

"Heh. Yeah... Right, c'mon, your turn."

"Hmm. Grifter's Bone, 1982." He indicates a jagged scar stretching from his cheek to his temple. "I don't recommend it."

"Shit. Okay, I raise you: Lightless Flame, 2002. Third degree burns." He pauses. "I, uh...got better.” He’d had to kill someone, though. A monster, sure, but still. It had left the witnesses marked.

“My turn, then?”

“Wait. There’s something I should tell you.”

The game is over.

Adelard waits patiently.

“So,” Gerry starts, because if he doesn’t say it now he doesn’t think he never will. That wouldn’t be fair to Adelard, who has been kind to him, in his way. “I’m...kind of dying.”

Adelard's expression is difficult to read in the dim candlelight.

“’Kind of dying?’” he repeats.

He tells him about his encounter outside of the Magnus Institute. The avatar of the End who, after they’d smoked half a pack of cigarettes between them, eventually revealed that his name was Oliver Banks. More importantly, Oliver had foretold Gerry’s death via head injury or beheading or something vaguely of that nature; Terminus likes surprises.

“What are you going to do?” Adelard asks once he’s finished.

"Same as ever, I guess. What else can I do? Smirke didn’t call it the End for nothing.”

"That doesn't necessarily mean this particular end is completely unavoidable," Adelard reasons, calm in a way that would be reassuring were it not profoundly irritating at the moment. “Terminus always gets its due, one way or another.”

"Right. But what’s the point of an avatar who knows when people are going to die if they can just prevent it?" Gerry argues, unsure himself why he is playing the devil’s advocate. He attributes this to the defiant streak instilled in him by his mother. Hope feels almost as cruel right now as it did back then.

There is a pause while Adelard considers the question. He frowns slightly, brows furrowed—an expression Gerry has come to recognize; it means he has a theory about something. Finally, he asks, "You're afraid, aren't you?"

"Obviously I'm fucking afraid," he snaps.

"Then there's your answer.”

“Yeah, maybe,” he concedes. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. About this or Leitner. I know I’ve made an absolute mess of the whole...friendship thing, and I will do better. At least, y’know, until I’m...dead. Assuming you don't want me to leave.”

“Of course not. I'd say we're just about even in regards to secrets. Trust is not a luxury often afforded by this work,” he says. “But the world needs more people like you, Gerry.”

“...Thank you.”

He isn’t entirely sure he agrees, but it’s nice to hear it all the same.

“Do you still want to know about the sword?” Adelard asks then.

Gerry smiles, relieved to speak of lighter things again.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on Tumblr @podcastenthusiast.


End file.
